If you’ve been fol­low­ing Kenyan pol­i­tics, you’re prob­a­bly ask­ing your­self one ques­tion: Who amongst our lead­ers isn’t cor­rupt? Trib­al­ism? Check. Mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds? Check. And now we’ve got the lat­est dra­ma brew­ing over the impeach­ment of Deputy Pres­i­dent Gach­agua. Is this yet anoth­er case of smoke and mir­rors, or is there some sub­stance to the rum­blings we hear? Well, that depends on who you ask—but one thing’s for sure: Kenyans have had enough of the blame games and they won’t take it anymore.

It’s iron­ic, real­ly. At a time when our coun­try faces stag­ger­ing eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, from the spi­ralling cost of liv­ing to a health­care tran­si­tion that is a hot mess, we are back to the old school of polit­i­cal sideshows. Only this time, the stakes seem high­er, and the absur­di­ty of it all is not lost on Kenyans. With a cen­sure motion against the Pres­i­dent him­self brew­ing in the Sen­ate, you have to chuck­le and ask, “Is there any­one left who hasn’t been dragged into the mud?”

To be sure, I don’t know if the seem­ing­ly grave alle­ga­tions against the DP are true, nei­ther do I hold a brief for him. As a mat­ter of fact, I believe that any­one who is cor­rupt, or ele­vates the tribe above the nation, should not hold pub­lic office. But let’s face it—who is it in our polit­i­cal lead­er­ship today, who is wor­thy to cast the first stone? The truth is, we’ve seen these diver­sion­ary tac­tics before. In times of cri­sis, just cre­ate an ene­my, point fin­gers, and the peo­ple will for­get the real issues at hand. They will for­get the chaot­ic health­care tran­si­tion, the dubi­ous air­port deal, the cor­rup­tion that stinks to the high heav­ens and the entire laun­dry list. But I now believe that Pres­i­dent William Ruto was absolute­ly right when he famous­ly said dur­ing the last cam­paigns that ‘wajin­ga wali­isha Kenya’, because there are indeed no fools left in Kenya. Wan­jiku is ful­ly awake, and she is mak­ing it known, loud and clear!

The so-called pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion ses­sions that have been staged across the coun­try, have demon­strat­ed clear­ly that Kenyans are begin­ning to see right through the cha­rade. We’ve seen young cit­i­zens rise up to the politi­cians and tell them off. The phrase ‘kufa dere­va, kufa makan­ga’ has acquired fresh rel­e­vance –‘ if the dri­ver is going to per­ish, let the tout per­ish as well’. This is a unique­ly Kenyan lin­go, but it makes the point pow­er­ful­ly – Kenyans are tired, not just of one polit­i­cal leader, but of all of them..

Indeed, the spir­it of the Gen Z protests we saw in June and July, has been reignit­ed in a pow­er­ful fash­ion. We’ve seen politi­cians being tak­en to task why they did not stage big pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion ses­sions before sign­ing the Adani air­port deals or when they want­ed to increase tax­es. They have been asked why they did not seek pub­lic opin­ion before to rolling out the painful chaos we are wit­ness­ing in the health sec­tor today. If fact, in some places, actu­al protests marred the pub­lic sessions.

I don’t believe that the seem­ing rejec­tion of the pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion meet­ings is nec­es­sar­i­ly a show of sup­port for the DP. Instead, it is a pow­er­ful repu­di­a­tion of the greed and hypocrisy of the entire polit­i­cal class. It is a warn­ing shot from Wan­jiku and sober­ing call to order. I pray that the politi­cians will smell the cof­fee and get back to the basics.
Let’s focus on the real issues. Let’s address cor­rup­tion head-on, end trib­al­ism, reduce the high cost of liv­ing and please, let us spare the coun­try from this end­less cycle of shame. Kenya deserves noth­ing less. Lead­ers are elect­ed to serve, to lead by exam­ple, and to cre­ate a bet­ter future for all —not to take part in cheap the­atrics. Think green, act green.